JJ The Orangutan Is Dead At The The Tender Age Of 45: An Open Letter To An Ape Stoolie

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio zoo is mourning the death of a 45-year-old orangutan that enjoyed interacting with children while on public view and watching recordings of football and “The Price Is Right” during private time.

The Blade newspaper reports the primate named J.J. died Saturday when the Toledo Zoo put the orangutan under anesthesia to determine whether more could be done to treat the animal’s heart disease and declining health.

I received a phone call early on Sunday morning informing me that longtime Stoolie JJ the orangutan died due to heart problems. I know what you are thinking, “Hey Chaps. Doesn’t orangutan actually have a ‘g’ on the end? Orangutang, right?” Actually the word is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning “person” and hutan meaning “forest”, thus “person of the forest” so the translation allows for the word to end with either the N or the G. Both are technically correct but scholars have adopted the use of N in all scientific journals so that’s what we’ll use here at Barstool Sports.

JJ loved watching college football and the Price is Right. He loved his crazy-shaped head and the people of Toledo. Hell, who doesn’t? I know I love Toledo. It’s wonderful this time of year too. Pumpkin SZN up there already. Incredible.

JJ will be sorely missed by the millions of people who flocked to the Toledo Zoo every year causing the Toledo Zoo to catapult to the number one ranked zoo in the country. “Ok, stop fucking around Chaps. No one flocks to the zoo in Toledo. It’s not even the number one zoo in the country.”

Do some research. It is the number one zoo in the country.

The zoo won USA Today’s Reader’s Choice contest, beating out zoos in larger cities including Houston, Chicago, Dallas and San Diego.

The contest was based on USA Today reader votes.

Below is the full top 10 list:

Toledo Zoo – Toledo, Ohio
St. Louis Zoo – St. Louis
Cincinnati Zoo – Cincinnati
Memphis Zoo – Memphis
Columbus Zoo – Columbus, Ohio
Henry Doorly Zoo – Omaha
Houston Zoo – Houston
Brookfield Zoo – Chicago
Dallas Zoo – Dallas
San Diego Zoo & Safari Park – San Diego

Hopefully, the loss of JJ won’t impact the ranking but you gotta think that it will.

That is the end of my open letter. I hope I did the open letter thing correctly. I’m not sure what open letter even really means, and now I’ll never get to ask JJ. Crushing!